A Dublin Fine Gael TD has hit out at the party over cuts to mental health funding that he views as "unacceptable".

Noel Rock, who is newly-elected in the Dublin North West constituency, also blasted low turnout in the Dail for the recent debate on the issue.

Despite every party having pledged to make mental health a priority in their election manifestos, Mr Rock said it was not "good enough" that only around a third of members attended the debate at Leinster House.

“In fact, mental health now has more funding than it ever had at any point in the history of the State. But it’s still nowhere near enough.

“The reality is it has been chronically underfunded and we’re still only in recovery mode whereby we’re upping the funding. I did find it peculiar and, this is bureaucrats for you, the officials in the Department of Health effectively put a line together saying it [the money] was being diverted to more politically-sensitive areas. That’s a nonsense.

“There is no more sensitive area right now than mental health. The system knows that, I know that, you know that.

“I’m baffled to see that completely unfeeling, cold, unsympathetic line, which I believe originated from the department officials themselves.

“It’s just unacceptable. I think this is the most urgent crisis facing our healthcare system.”

But Mr Rock was disappointed at the numbers in the chamber despite most of the 158 TDs being present earlier that day. He said: “While I understand TDs have other commitments, I don’t think it’s good enough that during the course of a four-hour debate on an important issue – when all TDs were present because they were there for the earlier part of the sitting – that a little more than one third of TDs even attended for 15 minutes.

“Particularly given the importance of the debate, the importance of the issue.

“Every party in their manifesto spoke about mental health funding and how we need to put this at the top of the agenda.

“But talk is very cheap. I just think it’s incredible only 35 to 40% of TDs managed to even show up to fight this debate.” Mr Rock will meet Mr Varadkar next week, and is still hopeful of some sort of reversal on the funding decision which he insisted was a historical problem.

He said: “It’s one that’s always been easy to divert funding away from because of the nature of the problem it’s relatively invisible.

Read More

“It doesn’t have people sitting on trollies. It’s a very silent form of suffering for many people who are waiting to be diagnosed, probably suffering in their own homes.”

However, he agreed there seems to be a generational divide on the issue.

The TD added: “I think younger members definitely are more engaged with this issue and with the importance of the reality of getting more funding.

“The responsibility lies on our shoulders. People like myself and Helen [McEntee] and Simon [Harris] need to make more noise about this within in our own party and emphasise the importance of real engagement on the matter.”